A Newbie’s Experience with the Inventor 2018 Free Trial: Week One

I’m one week into my Inventor 2018 free trial and all is going smoothly – here’s what I’m learning. [View the Introduction to this series here]

This week I have been slowly getting the hang of Inventor’s functionality. For those of you just joining me on this series, I am coming from a pretty extensive background using AutoCAD Civil 3D, so I’m still working on breaking down some of my CAD muscle memories that just don’t overlap.

My biggest hindrance to learning so far has simply been myself. There have been days where I’ve gotten busy with work and forgotten about the trial. For anyone out there just getting started with Inventor, set reminders and try to learn at least a little bit each day. This has been helping me and it keeps me from having to remember what I learned days ago.

In terms of where I am at with my learning process, I’m working my way through the built-in learning path and am just beginning on the assembly portion. I’ve been taking my time with each of the tutorial steps and experimenting with my own designs along the way. Some of the main things I’ve learned this week are really the basics, things like holes, extrusions, chamfers, parts, and some assembly. I’m making sure to take my time and build a foundation for all of these functionalities so I don’t get lost down the road.

I’m beginning to set some goals for myself as I work through the trial and get better at using Inventor. Right now, my biggest goal is to reach the end of the trial and design my own assembly of some kind, then 3D print it all. I feel like this will be a manageable goal as we move along, and I recommend that anyone else with the trial set similar goals as well. You only have 30 days, so taking advantage of everything you can during it is important.

As I’m getting more and more comfortable, I’m finding that exploring my own designs beyond the learning path and built-in tutorials is getting easier. Experienced users: I’ve got one week under my belt, what should I learn or design over the next week? New users:  What are some things you’re struggling with at this point?

Check back on the Inventor blog next week or follow along on Facebook as I’ll be back soon with another “Newbie’s Experience”  blog soon.

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